Wendy Holden's Podcast

At an excellent literary festival in Tring, Herts, author Wendy Holden talks about what led her to this particular story, who it was inspired by, and a whole lot more. At almost an hour long this recording is a real insight into the mind and process of a bestselling historian.  I write books. Lots of books. I tell people's stories.  And sometimes, I tell my own... www.wendyholden.com

A fascinating and timely interview from 10 years ago to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII and the liberation of tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors. Next week, on the 80th anniversary, Wendy Holden, Mark Olsky, plus the two other miracles babies Hana Moran and Eva Clarke will, with Paul Kosiek, revisit Mauthausen concentration camp and remember those who didn't make it. I writ...

Bestselling author and historian Wendy Holden explains what led her to write a novel inspired by the incredible true story of Fredy Hirsch, a young man who persuaded the Nazis to allow him to set up a Children's Block in the shadow of Auschwitz's hungry chimneys. Young, gay, German and Jewish, Fredy set aside his own needs and risked his life every day to offer thousands of children guid...

In July 2021, Wendy was invited to the postponed Ways with Words Literary Festival at Dartington Hall in Devon to speak about her friendship and working relationship with the 100-year-old war veteran Captain Tom, who raised almost £40m for the NHS during the pandemic lockdown. This is the 50-minute audio recording of the video of that event, minus the first few minutes due to a technical fault. We...

This exclusive interview with the brilliant Phil Williams on the award winning Times Radio aired on March 31. In it, Wendy and Phil talk about Tom's legacy work - Life Lessons - published April 2 to follow on from his bestselling autobiography Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day. Tom sadly died of Covid two months earlier on February 2, aged 100. Life Lessons, written in his own words before he died,...

In this acclaimed first novel by author and former journalist Wendy Holden, Charlie, a war correspondent turned author who is haunted by her worst journalistic experiences, turns to the history of paper and the materials of JMW Turner to distract her from the ghosts of her past. Her research brings her into contact with Alan, a highly successful artist and Turner scholar. She falls under his seduc...

This is the audio only of a video presentation that aired at the end of 2020 featuring Edna Adam Ismail, the 'Muslim Mother Teresa' whose life of selfless devotion is soon to be a film. Her autobiography,  A Woman of Firsts, published by Harper Collins, broke new ground. Here is some more information about it---- Imprisonment. Mutilation. Persecution. Edna Adan Ismail endured it all – fo...

On this the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Wendy Holden author of Born Survivors and One Hundred Miracles, reflects on how our experience of the coronavirus pandemic can impact on our thoughts about this memorial day #LightInTheDarkness #HMD2021 I write books. Lots of books. I tell people's stories.  And sometimes, I tell my own... www.wendyholden.com

A beautiful glassmaker. Two damaged men who love her. Set in exotic Bohemia and the wilderness of an English coast, this is a story of obsession and passion and fear…   Wendy Holden explains where she found the unlikely inspiration for her latest novel, The Cruelty of Beauty, set in pre-revolution Czechoslovakia and Norfolk. 'A seed had been planted in my writer’s imagination - the nucleus of...

Thirty years after she first heard his voice singing to her from a jukebox at her local drive-in, Barbara Ann Blakely began her love affair with Frank Sinatra. After a tempestuous courtship, she finally heard him say the wedding vows that began his fourth, final, and most enduring marriage; one that would last more than two decades until the end of his life. Generous and jealous, witty and wicked,...

Imprisonment. Mutilation. Persecution. Edna Adan Ismail endured it all – for the women of Africa. Edna saw first-hand how poor healthcare, lack of education and ancient superstitions had devastating effects on Somaliland’s people, especially its women. When she suffered the trauma of FGM herself as a young girl at the bidding of her mother, Edna’s determination was set. The first midwife to practi...

THE COVID-19 pandemic has caused untold heartache around the world and the subsequent lockdown separated thousands of people from their loved ones. But for one disabled boy and his three-legged rescue dog who captured the hearts of millions, being forced to live apart was especially hard.  I write books. Lots of books. I tell people's stories.  And sometimes, I tell my own... www.wendyholden....

This lockdown podcast was a first for me, a request to answer questions about life lessons as if I were leaving them on a telephone answering machine. In it I talk about Born Survivors, the human instinct for survival, the nature of evil and how to bring about change in the world. I write books. Lots of books. I tell people's stories.  And sometimes, I tell my own... www.wendyholden.com

Author Wendy Holden tells how miracle Holocaust 'baby' Eva Clarke and her mother Anka survived imprisonment, slave labour and finally murder by gas, as the world commemorates 75 years since the end of WWII and Eva privately marks her 75th birthday I write books. Lots of books. I tell people's stories.  And sometimes, I tell my own... www.wendyholden.com

Recorded direct from a Youtube video for the virtual book launch for the new WWII75 commemorative paperback edition of this bestselling book, published in 22 countries. To watch the video go to t https://youtu.be/DT7xINWaHfM I write books. Lots of books. I tell people's stories.  And sometimes, I tell my own... www.wendyholden.com

Young musician Zuzana Ruzickova was just eighteen years old when, after almost six years of imprisonment and slave labour under Nazi rule, she and her mother were liberated from Bergen-Belsen by the British. The date was April 15, 1945, seventy-five years ago today, and they very nearly didn't make it. In her memoir One Hundred Miracles, published in paperback by Bloomsbury on May 14 and avai...

Bestselling author Wendy Holden, in coronavirus lockdown at her home in Suffolk, is remaining philosophical about a forthcoming milestone in her writing career that has been badly affected by the pandemic. With the PR campaigns for three new books coming out in less than two weeks all but scuppered, she is drawing inspiration from the remarkable women she writes about. For more information, see ww...

Having taken part in the London service for Holocaust Memorial Day, attended by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Wendy Holden reads from her international bestseller Born Survivors, now published in 22 countries and translated into 16 languages. We must never forget. I write books. Lots of books. I tell people's stories.  And sometimes, I tell my own... www.wendyholden.com

Wendy Holden talks about another of her books, Shell Shock, an exhaustive historical record drawn from the WWI case histories and painful testimony of numerous veterans and their doctors. Individuals tell of events that pushed them to the brink of human endurance. Shell Shock also relates the history of military psychiatry and the dilemma of those entrusted to balance the demands to ‘cure’ soldier...

Susan Travers was a frail old lady living in a nursing home in Paris when I met her to ask about her remarkable time in the Second World War. What she told me was astonishing and unique. It formed the basis of her memoir, Tomorrow to be Brave, which was subsequently published in twelve countries and is soon to be a film. Here is an Amazon link to the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tomorrow-Be-Brav...

Author Wendy Holden, who has written two books with Goldie Hawn including the bestselling 10 Mindful Minutes, talks about the passion and compassion of her friend and co-author in giving parents and children the emotional and psychological tools to handle stress. I write books. Lots of books. I tell people's stories.  And sometimes, I tell my own... www.wendyholden.com

Author Wendy Holden, also known as Taylor Holden, talks of the inspiration behind her first novel The Sense of Paper. I write books. Lots of books. I tell people's stories.  And sometimes, I tell my own... www.wendyholden.com

Author Wendy Holden talks about her latest book, One Hundred Miracles, the acclaimed memoir of Czech musician and Holocaust survivor Zuzana Ruzickova. Describing working with her in Prague shortly before her death, aged 90, in 2017 Wendy paints a vivid picture of a tiny, twinkly-eyed woman who chain-smoked as she recounted her remarkable life story. Published by Bloomsbury in the UK and in seven o...

When author Wendy Holden was researching and writing her international bestseller Born Survivors, a true story about three young mothers who hid their pregnancies from the Nazis, she found solace in the simple pleasures of searching for pebbles on her local Suffolk beach. When she had collected enough stones, she headed off to Poland, Germany, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to lay three at each o...